As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As features and capabilities of information handling systems have increased, and the costs of information handling systems have decreased, companies have increased their use of information handling systems in their day-to-day business. Nowadays, it has become common for many companies to use numerous information handling systems, sometimes on the order of hundreds, thousands, and tens-of-thousands, in connection with their operations. However, in many environments, before such information handling systems may be used by their respective end users, a data including an operating system and one or more application programs is deployed on each information handling system. In addition, oftentimes data and settings from a second information handling system must be migrated in scenarios where the deployed information handling system is to replace the second information handling system. Such deployment and configuration of numerous information handling systems can often be a complex process. Deployments may be even more complex in situations in which the physical and/or hardware characteristics of the multiple information handling systems differ, and in situations in which different operating systems, application programs, and data are deployed based on a characteristic of an end user (e.g., the end user's line of business, title, position, etc.).
Traditionally, companies have configured and installed information handling systems from a network share. However, storing content necessary to configure and deploy a plurality of information handling systems on a network may be costly, as such content can consume several gigabytes of storage space and such content is often replicated to multiple servers. Synchronization of these content repositories may also provide a challenge and increase complexity. In addition, network deployment is often difficult to fully automate and may require significant labor to develop customizations and complete configurations of individual information handling systems post-deployment. Accordingly, systems and methods that provide for decreased complexity and increased management capability over traditional deployment techniques are desired.